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Prince of Thorns (The Broken Empire Book 1) Kindle Edition
“Prince of Thorns deserves attention as the work of an iconoclast who seems determined to turn that familiar thing, Medievalesque Fantasy Trilogy, entirely on its head.”—Locus
When he was nine, he watched as his mother and brother were killed before him. By the time he was thirteen, he was the leader of a band of bloodthirsty thugs. By fifteen, he intends to be king...
It’s time for Prince Honorous Jorg Ancrath to return to the castle he turned his back on, to take what’s rightfully his. Since the day he hung pinned on the thorns of a briar patch and watched Count Renar’s men slaughter his mother and young brother, Jorg has been driven to vent his rage. Life and death are no more than a game to him—and he has nothing left to lose.
But treachery awaits him in his father’s castle. Treachery and dark magic. No matter how fierce his will, can one young man conquer enemies with power beyond his imagining?
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherAce
- Publication dateAugust 2, 2011
- File size2421 KB
- Let a man play chess, and tell him that every pawn is his friend. Let him think both bishops holy. Let him remember happy days in the shadows of his castles. Let him love his queen. Watch him lose them all.Highlighted by 1,248 Kindle readers
- War, my friends, is a thing of beauty. Those as says otherwise are losing.Highlighted by 937 Kindle readers
- Hold to a thing long enough, a secret, a desire, maybe a lie, and it will shape you.Highlighted by 934 Kindle readers
- You’d think priests would be better liars, what with their job and all.Highlighted by 734 Kindle readers
Editorial Reviews
Review
“This is a lean, cold knife-thrust of a novel, a revenge fantasy anchored on the compelling voice and savage purpose of its titular Prince. There is never a safe moment in Lawrence’s debut.”—Robert Redick, author of The River of Shadows
“Dark and relentless, the Prince of Thorns will pull you under and drown you in story. A two in the morning page turner.”—Robin Hobb, author of Assassin's Fate
“[A] morbidly gripping, gritty fantasy tale.”—Publishers Weekly
“Vivid…smooth and compelling...gritty and full of wonder. This book is brilliant.”—Galaxy Book Reviews
“Disturbing, beautiful, chaotic, poetic, haunting, exhilarating.”—Fantasy Faction
“Without a doubt the most original and most memorable fantasy debut of 2011. It’s difficult to imagine how another book could top this one.”—RisingShadows.net
“2011 is turning into another year for impressive genre debuts, but at this point Prince of Thorns is arguably the most impressive and stunning...Highly recommended.”—SFFworld.com
“Defies the conventions of epic fantasy by invoking them only to take a savage delight in tearing them apart.”—Locus
About the Author
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Ravens! Always the ravens. They settled on the gables of the church even before the injured became the dead. Even before Rike had finished taking fingers from hands, and rings from fingers. I leaned back against the gallows-post and nodded to the birds, a dozen of them in a black line, wise-eyed and watching.
The town-square ran red. Blood in the gutters, blood on the flagstones, blood in the fountain. The corpses posed as corpses do. Some comical, reaching for the sky with missing fingers, some peaceful, coiled about their wounds. Flies rose above the wounded as they struggled. This way and that, some blind, some sly, all betrayed by their buzzing entourage.
'Water! Water!' It's always water with the dying. Strange—it's killing that gives me a thirst.
And that was Mabberton. Two hundred dead farmers lying with their scythes and axes. You know, I warned them that we do this for a living. I said it to their leader, Bovid Tor. I gave them that chance, I always do. But no. They wanted blood and slaughter. And they got it.
War, my friends, is a thing of beauty. Those as says otherwise are losing. If I'd bothered to go over to old Bovid, propped up against the fountain with his guts in his lap, he'd probably take a contrary view. But look where disagreeing got him.
'Shit-poor farm maggots,' Rike discarded a handful of fingers over Bovid's open belly. He came to me, holding out his takings, as if it was my fault. 'Look! One gold ring. One! A whole village and one fecking gold ring. I'd like to set the bastards up and knock 'em down again. Fecking bog-farmers.'
He would too: he was an evil bastard, and greedy with it. I held his eye. 'Settle down, Brother Rike. There's more than one kind of gold in Mabberton.'
I gave him my warning look. His cursing stole the magic from the scene; besides, I had to be stern with him. Rike was always on the edge after a battle, wanting more. I gave him a look that told him I had more. More than he could handle. He grumbled, stowed his bloody ring, and thrust his knife back in his belt.
Makin came up then and flung an arm about each of us, clapping gauntlet to shoulder-plate. If Makin had a skill, then smoothing things over was it.
'Brother Jorg is right, Little Rikey. There's treasure aplenty to be found.' He was wont to call Rike 'Little Rikey', on account of him being a head taller than any of us and twice as wide. Makin always told jokes. He'd tell them to those as he killed, if they gave him time. Liked to see them go out with a smile.
'What treasure?' Rike wanted to know, still surly.
'When you get farmers, what else do you always get, Little Rikey?' Makin raised his eyebrows all suggestive.
Rike lifted his visor, treating us to his ugly face. Well brutal more than ugly. I think the scars improved him. 'Cows?'
Makin pursed his lips. I never liked his lips, too thick and fleshy, but I forgave him that, for his joking and his deathly work with that flail of his. 'Well, you can have the cows, Little Rikey. Me, I'm going to find a farmer's daughter or three, before the others use them all up.'
They went off then, Rike doing that laugh of his—'hur, hur, hur'—as if he was trying to cough a fishbone out.
I watched them force the door to Bovid's place opposite the church, a fine house, high roofed with wooden slates and a little flower garden in front. Bovid followed them with his eyes, but he couldn't turn his head.
I looked at the ravens, I watched Gemt and his half-wit brother, Maical, taking heads, Maical with the cart and Gemt with the axe. A thing of beauty, I tell you. At least to look at. I'll agree war smells bad. But, we'd torch the place soon enough and the stink would all turn to wood-smoke. Gold rings? I needed no more payment.
'Boy!' Bovid called out, his voice all hollow like, and weak.
I went to stand before him, leaning on my sword, tired in my arms and legs all of a sudden. 'Best speak your piece quickly, farmer. Brother Gemt's a-coming with his axe. Chop-chop.'
He didn't seem too worried. It's hard to worry a man so close to the worm-feast. Still it irked me that he held me so lightly and called me 'boy'. 'Do you have daughters, farmer? Hiding in the cellar maybe? Old Rike will sniff them out.'
Bovid looked up sharp at that, pained and sharp. 'H-how old are you, boy?'
Again the 'boy'. 'Old enough to slit you open like a fat purse,' I said, getting angry now. I don't like to get angry. It makes me angry. I don't think he caught even that. I don't think he even knew it was me that opened him up not half an hour before.
'Fifteen summers, no more. Couldn't be more…' His words came slow, from blue lips in a white face.
Out by two, I would have told him, but he'd gone past hearing. The cart creaked up behind me, and Gemt came along with his axe dripping.
'Take his head,' I told them. 'Leave his fat belly for the ravens.'
Fifteen! I'd hardly be fifteen and rousting villages.
By the time fifteen came around, I'd be King!
2
Mabberton burned well. All the villages burned well that summer. Makin called it a hot bastard of a summer, too mean to give out rain, and he wasn't wrong. Dust rose behind us when we rode in; smoke when we rode out.
'Who'd be a farmer?' Makin liked to ask questions.
'Who'd be a farmer's daughter?' I nodded toward Rike, rolling in his saddle, almost tired enough to fall out, wearing a stupid grin and a bolt of samite cloth over his half-plate. Where he found samite in Mabberton I never did get to know.
'Brother Rike does enjoy his simple pleasures,' Makin said.
He did. Rike had a hunger for it. Hungry like the fire.
The flames fair ate up Mabberton. I put the torch to the thatched inn, and the fire chased us out. Just one more bloody day in the years' long death throes of our broken empire.
Makin wiped at his sweat, smearing himself all over with soot-stripes. He had a talent for getting dirty, did Makin. 'You weren't above those simple pleasures yourself, Brother Jorg.'
I couldn't argue there. 'How old are you?' that fat farmer had wanted to know. Old enough to pay a call on his daughters. The fat girl had a lot to say, just like her father. Screeched like a barn owl: hurt my ears with it. I liked the older one better. She was quiet enough. So quiet you'd give a twist here or there just to check she hadn't died of fright. Though I don't suppose either of them was quiet when the fire reached them…
Gemt rode up and spoiled my imaginings.
'The Baron's men will see that smoke from ten miles. You shouldn'ta burned it.' He shook his head, his stupid mane of ginger hair bobbing this way and that.
'Shouldn'ta,' his idiot brother joined in, calling from the old grey. We let him ride the old grey with the cart hitched up. The grey wouldn't leave the road. That horse was cleverer than Maical.
Gemt always wanted to point stuff out. 'You shouldn'ta put them bodies down the well, we'll go thirsty now.' 'You shouldn'ta killed that priest, we'll have bad luck now.' 'If we'd gone easy on her we'd have a ransom from Baron Kennick.' I just ached to put my knife through his throat. Right then. Just to lean out and plant it in his neck. 'What's that? What say you, Brother Gemt? Bubble, bubble? Shouldn'ta stabbed your bulgy old Adam's apple?'
'Oh no!' I cried, all shocked like. 'Quick, Little Rikey, go piss on Mabberton. Got to put that fire out.'
'Baron's men will see it,' said Gemt, stubborn and red-faced. He went red as a beet if you crossed him. That red face just made me want to kill him even more. I didn't, though. You got responsibilities when you're a leader. You got a responsibility not to kill too many of your men. Or who're you going to lead?
The column bunched up around us, the way it always did when something was up. I pulled on Gerrod's reins and he stopped with a snicker and a stamp. I watched Gemt and waited. Waited until all thirty-eight of my brothers gathered around, and Gemt got so red you'd think his ears would bleed.
'Where we all going, my brothers?' I asked, and I stood in my stirrups so I could look out over their ugly faces. I asked it in my quiet voice and they all hushed to hear.
'Where?' I asked again. 'Surely it isn't just me that knows? Do I keep secrets from you, my brothers?'
Rike looked a bit confused at this, furrowing his brow. Fat Burlow came up on my right, on my left the Nuban with his teeth so white in that soot-black face. Silence.
'Brother Gemt can tell us. He knows what should be and what is.' I smiled, though my hand still ached with wanting my dagger in his neck. 'Where we going, Brother Gemt?'
'Wennith, on the Horse Coast,' he said, all reluctant, not wanting to agree to anything.
'Well and good. How we going to get there? Near forty of us on our fine oh-so-stolen horses?'
Gemt set his jaw. He could see where I was going.
'How we going to get there, if we want us a slice of the pie while it's still nice and hot?' I asked.
'Lich Road!' Rike called out, all pleased that he knew the answer.
'Lich Road,' I repeated, still quiet and smiling. 'What other way could we go?' I looked at the Nuban, holding his dark eyes. I couldn't read him, but I let him read me.
'Ain't no other way.'
Rike's on a roll, I thought, he don't know what game's being played, but he likes his part.
'Do the Baron's men know where we're going?' I asked Fat Burlow.
'War dogs follow the front,' he said. Fat Burlow ain't stupid. His jowls quiver when he speaks, but he ain't stupid.
'So…' I looked around them, real slow-like. 'So, the Baron knows where bandits such as ourselves will be going, and he knows the way we've got to go.' I let that sink in. 'And I just lit a bloody big fire that tells him and his what a bad idea it'd be to follow.'
I stuck Gemt with my knife then. I didn't need to, but I wanted it. He danced pretty enough too, bubble bubble on his blood, and fell off his horse. His red face went pale quick enough.
'Maical,' I said. 'Take his head.'
And he did.
Gemt just chose a bad moment.
3
'Two dead, two wrigglers.' Makin wore that big grin of his.
We'd have camped by the gibbet in any case, but Makin had ridden on ahead to check the ground. I thought the news that two of the four gibbet cages held live prisoners would cheer the brothers.
'Two,' Rike grumbled. He'd tired himself out, and a tired Little Rikey always sees a gibbet as half empty.
'Two!' the Nuban hollered down the line.
I could see some of the lads exchanging coin on their bets. The Lich Road is as boring as a Sunday sermon. It runs straight and level. So straight it gets so as you'd kill for a left turn or a right turn. So level you'd cheer a slope. And on every side, marsh, midges, midges and more marsh. On the Lich Road it didn't get any better than two caged wrigglers on a gibbet.
Strange that I didn't think to question what business a gibbet had standing out there in the middle of nowhere. I took it as a bounty. Somebody had left their prisoners to die, dangling in cages at the roadside. A strange spot to choose, but free entertainment for my little band nonetheless The brothers were eager, so I nudged Gerrod into a trot. A good horse, Gerrod. He shook off his weariness and clattered along. There's no road like the Lich Road for clattering along.
'Wrigglers!' Rike gave a shout and they were all racing to catch up.
I let Gerrod have his head. He wouldn't let any horse get past him. Not on this road. Not with every yard of it paved, every flagstone fitting with the next so close a blade of grass couldn't hope for the light. Not a stone turned, not a stone worn. Built on a bog, mind you!
I beat them to the wrigglers, of course. None of them could touch Gerrod. Certainly not with me on his back and them all half as heavy again. At the gibbet I turned to look back at them, strung out along the road. I yelled out, wild with the joy of it, loud enough to wake the head-cart. Gemt would be in there, bouncing around at the back.
Makin reached me first, even though he'd rode the distance twice before.
'Let the Baron's men come,' I told him. 'The Lich Road is as good as any bridge. Ten men could hold an army here. Them that wants to flank us can drown in the bog.'
Makin nodded, still hunting his breath.
'The ones who built this road… if they'd make me a castle—' Thunder in the east cut across my words.
'If the Road-men built castles we'd never get in anywhere,' Makin said. 'Be happy they're gone.'
We watched the brothers come in. The sunset turned the marsh pools to orange fire, and I thought of Mabberton.
'A good day, Brother Makin,' I said.
'Indeed, Brother Jorg,' he said.
So, the brothers came and set to arguing over the wrigglers. I went and sat against the loot-cart to read while the light stayed with us and the rain held off. The day left me in mind to read Plutarch. I had him all to myself, sandwiched between leather covers. Some worthy monk spent a lifetime on that book. A lifetime hunched over it, brush in hand. Here the gold, for halo, sun, and scrollwork. Here a blue like poison, bluer than a noon sky. Tiny vermilion dots to make a bed of flowers. Probably went blind over it, that monk. Probably poured his life in here, from young lad to grey-head, prettying up old Plutarch's words.
The thunder rolled, the wrigglers wriggled and howled, and I sat reading words that were older than old before the Road-men built their roads.
'You're cowards! Women with your swords and axes!' One of the crow-feasts on the gibbet had a mouth on him.
'Not a man amongst you. All pederasts, trailing up here after that little boy.' He curled his words up at the end like a Merssy-man.
'There's a fella over here got an opinion about you, Brother Jorg!' Makin called out.
A drop of rain hit my nose. I closed the cover on Plutarch. He'd waited a while to tell me about Sparta and Lycurgus, he could wait some more and not get wet doing it. The wriggler had more to say and I let him tell it to my back. On the road you've got to wrap a book well to keep the rain out. Ten turns of oilcloth, ten more turns the other way, then stash it under a cloak in a saddlebag. A good saddlebag mind, none of that junk from the Thurtans, good double-stitched leather from the Horse Coast.
The lads parted to let me up close. The gibbet stank worse than the head-cart, a crude thing of fresh-cut timber. Four cages hung there. Two held dead men. Verydead men. Legs dangling through the bars, raven-pecked to the bone. Flies thick about them, like a second skin, black and buzzing. The lads had taken a few pokes at one of the wrigglers, and he didn't look too cheerful for it. In fact he looked as if he'd pegged it. Which was a waste, as we had a whole night ahead of us, and I'd have said as much, but for the wriggler with the mouth.
'So now the boy comes over! He's finished looking for lewd pictures in his stolen book.' He sat crouched up in his cage, his feet all bleeding and raw. An old man, maybe forty, all black hair and beard and dark eyes glittering. 'Take the pages to wipe your dung, boy,' he said fierce-like, grabbing the bars all of a sudden, making the cage swing. 'It's the only use you'll get from it.'
'We could set a slow fire?' Rike said. Even Rike knew the old man just wanted us angry, so we'd finish him quick. 'Like we did at the Ronwood gibbets.'
A few chuckles went up at that. Not from Makin though. He had a frown on under his dirt and soot, staring at the wriggler. I held up a hand to quiet them down.
'It'd be a shameful waste of such a fine book, Father Gomst,' I said.
Like Makin, I'd recognized Gomst through all that beard and hair. Without that accent though he'd have got roasted.
'Especially an "On Lycurgus" written in high Latin, not that pidgin-Romano they teach in church.'
'You know me?' He asked it in a cracked voice, weepy all of a sudden.
'Of course I do.' I pushed both hands through my lovely locks, and set my hair back so he could see me proper in the gloom. I have the sharp dark looks of the Ancraths. 'You're Father Gomst, come to take me back to school.'
'Pr-prin…' He was blubbing now, unable to get his words out. Disgusting really. Made me feel as if I'd bitten something rotten.
'Prince Honorous Jorg Ancrath, at your service.' I did my court bow.
'Wh-what became of Captain Bortha?' Father Gomst swung gently in his cage, all confused.
'Captain Bortha, sir!' Makin snapped a salute and stepped up. He had blood on him from the first wriggler.
We had us a deathly silence then. Even the chirp and whir of the marsh hushed down to a whisper. The brothers looked from me, back to the old priest, and back to me, mouths hanging open. Little Rikey couldn't have looked more surprised if you'd asked him nine times six.
The rain chose that moment to fall, all at once as if the Lord Almighty had emptied his chamber pot over us. The gloom that had been gathering set thick as treacle.
'Prince Jorg!' Father Gomst had to shout over the rain. 'The night! You've got to run!' He held the bars of his cage, white-knuckled, wide eyes unblinking in the downpour, staring into the darkness.
And through the night, through the rain, over the marsh where no man could walk, we saw them coming. We saw their lights. Pale lights such as the dead burn in deep pools where men aren't meant to look. Lights that'd promise whatever a man could want, and would set you chasing them, hunting answers and finding only cold mud, deep and hungry.
I never liked Father Gomst. He'd been telling me what to do since I was six, most often with the back of his hand as the reason.
'Run Prince Jorg! Run!' old Gomsty howled, sickeningly self-sacrificing.
So I stood my ground.
4
The dead came on through the rain, the ghosts of the bog-dead, of the drowned, and of men whose corpses were given to the mire. I saw Red Kent run blind and flounder in the marsh. A few of the brothers had the sense to take the road when they ran, most ended in the mire.
Father Gomst started praying in his cage, shouting out the words like a shield: 'Father who art in heaven protect thy son. Father who art in heaven.' Faster and faster, as the fear got into him.
The first of them came up over the sucking pool, and onto the Lichway. He had a glow about him like moonlight, something that you knew would never warm you. You could see his body limned in the light, with the rain racing through him and bouncing on the road.
Nobody stood with me. The Nuban ran, eyes wide in a dark face. Fat Burlow looking as if the blood was let from him. Rike screaming like a child. Even Makin, with a horror on him.
I held my arms wide to the rain. I could feel it beat on me. I didn't have so many years under my belt, but even to me the rain fell like memory. It woke wild nights in me when I stood on the Keep Tower, on the edge above a high fall, near drowned in the deluge and daring the lightning to touch me.
'Our Father who art in heaven. Father who art…' Gomst started to gabble when the lich came close. It burned with a cold fire and you could feel it licking at your bones.
I kept my arms wide and my face to the rain.
'My father isn't in heaven Gomsty,' I said. 'He's in his castle, counting out his men.'
The dead thing closed on me, and I looked in its eyes. Hollow they were.
'What have you got?' I said.
And it showed me.
And I showed it.
There's a reason I'm going to win this war. Everyone alive has been fighting a battle that grew old before they were born. I cut my teeth on the wooden soldiers in my father's war-room. There's a reason I'm going to win where they failed. It's because I understand the game.
'Hell,' the dead man said. 'I've got hell.'
And he flowed into me, cold as dying, edged like a razor.
I felt my mouth curl in a smile. I heard my laughing over the rain.
A knife is a scary thing right enough, held to your throat, sharp and cool. The fire too, and the rack. And an old ghost on the Lichway. All of them might give you pause. Until you realize what they are. They're just ways to lose the game. You lose the game, and what have you lost? You've lost the game.
That's the secret, and it amazes me that it's mine and mine alone. I saw the game for what it was the night when Count Renar's men caught our carriage. There was a storm that night too, I remember the din of rain on the carriage roof and the thunder beneath it.
Big Jan had fair hauled the door off its hinges to get us out. He only had time for me though. He threw me clear; into a briar patch so thick that the Count's men persuaded themselves I'd run into the night. They didn't want to search it. But I hadn't run. I'd hung there in the thorns, and I saw them kill Big Jan. I saw it in the frozen moments the lightning gave me.
I saw what they did to Mother, and how long it took. They broke little William's head against a milestone. Golden curls and blood. And I'll admit that William was the first of my brothers, and he did have his hooks in me, with his chubby hands and laughing. Since then I've taken on many a brother, and evil ones at that, so I'd not miss one or three. But at the time, it did hurt to see little William broken like that, like a toy. Like something worthless.
When they killed him, Mother wouldn't hold her peace, so they slit her throat. I was stupid then, being only nine, and I fought to save them both. But the thorns held me tight. I've learned to appreciate thorns since.
The thorns taught me the game. They let me understand what all those grim and serious men who've fought the Hundred War, have yet to learn. You can only win the game when you understand that it is a game. Let a man play chess, and tell him that every pawn is his friend. Let him think both bishops holy. Let him remember happy days in the shadows of his castles. Let him love his queen. Watch him lose them all.
'What have you got for me, dead thing?' I asked.
It's a game. I will play my pieces.
I felt him cold inside me. I saw his death. I saw his despair. And his hunger. And I gave it back. I'd expected more, but he was only dead.
I showed him the empty time where my memory won't go. I let him look there.
He ran from me then. He ran, and I chased him. But only to the edge of the marsh. Because it's a game. And I'm going to win.
Product details
- ASIN : B0052RERW8
- Publisher : Ace; 1st edition (August 2, 2011)
- Publication date : August 2, 2011
- Language : English
- File size : 2421 KB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Sticky notes : On Kindle Scribe
- Print length : 389 pages
- Best Sellers Rank: #28,673 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #314 in Action & Adventure Fantasy (Kindle Store)
- #363 in Dark Fantasy Horror
- #407 in Coming of Age Fantasy (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
Mark Lawrence is married with four children, one of whom is severely disabled. His day job is as a research scientist focused on various rather intractable problems in the field of artificial intelligence. He has held secret level clearance with both US and UK governments. At one point he was qualified to say 'this isn't rocket science ... oh wait, it actually is'.
Between work and caring for his disabled child, Mark spends his time writing, playing computer games, tending an allotment, brewing beer, and avoiding DIY.
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Prince of Thorns is the first book in the Broken Empire Trilogy, narrated from the first person point of view of Jorg Ancrath, a teenage psychopath who is hell-bent on revenge. I mentioned above that this book is suitable for mature young adult to adult, mostly because a lot of young adult readers tend to be old enough to read books with violence and cursing. I wouldn’t recommend this book for someone in high school because this is dark fantasy. And while the main character is a teenager, this is a very adult book.
If you can handle a lot of descriptive violence, the fact Jorg is very much an anti-hero who has no remorse for his actions, and a fair amount of cursing, then you will get along just fine with this series.
Jorg is an awesome character, focused on getting revenge for the murder of his mother and brother. But his revenge plot goes beyond hunting down those who are responsible for their deaths. Jorg finds pleasure in taking a life, something you figure out right away in chapter one, and even by the end of the book, there is absolutely no remorse from Little Jorgy. He feels as though his actions are justified. He has a spoiled brat mentality, an air of entitlement that might annoy some readers, but I didn’t mind it at all.
“Fifteen! I’d hardly be fifteen and rousting villages. By the time fifteen came around, I’d be King!”
Some of my favorite characters are Hannibal Lecter, Michael Corleone, Dexter Morgan, and I can’t forget Walter White. What do they all have in common? They’re all sociopaths who will do whatever is necessary to get what they want, which is exactly why I like Jorg so much.
The book opens with Jorg and his brothers, who are equally sadistic, killing a farmer. They go around to different villages, killing everyone who stands in their way, taking what they think they deserve. There is no rhyme or reason why they think this way. They’re basically serial killers, which is why I equated them to a few of my favorite psychopaths.
“Every brotherhood has a pecking order. With brothers like mine you don’t want to be at the bottom of that order. You’re liable to get pecked to death. Brother Jobe had just the right mix of whipped cur and rabies to stay alive there.”
While I loved this book, I had some confusion with certain parts. Jorg is a sociopath, meaning he has a lack of conscience, remorse, and shame. Because of this, I expected his lack of feelings to extend to his family, but he consistently showed the he cared about his mother and brother.
I know they say it’s possible for someone like this to have a connection with certain people, but I would’ve expected someone of this serial killer status to have zero care in the world about anyone but himself. This is what makes it hard not to like him. It’s like when you read Dexter and you see how much he cares about his sister, Deb, and you automatically think that maybe he has some redeemable qualities. But he doesn’t.
You should expect to read chapters at a time where all Jorg and his men do is kill people who are in their way as they travel from one place to another. I was more than okay with this, but because of that, I wouldn’t recommend this book for anyone who doesn’t like violence. It’s not something you will warm up to if it’s not already your thing. Part of the plot revolves around necromancers, and this confused me a bit. I wasn’t all that sure how the dreams and the magic were all connected and how it worked in this world. There’s a fair amount of people and things from our world mentioned, even famous historians and texts that were instantly familiar to me.
For that reason, I wasn’t entirely sure if this was supposed to be high fantasy, like Game of Thrones, or a mix of both the real and fantasy worlds. I believe Jorg was learning about Plato and Socrates from his tutor, which seemed odd to me, seeing as he lives in what I thought was a completely fictionalized world. Don’t get me wrong the world building is fantastic, and I enjoyed this book more than I originally had anticipated, but some things did cause me to take a minute and sort of regroup until I figured out what I was missing.
Once you meet Jorg’s father, King Olidan, things get intense while he’s in the castle and you finally see why Jorg is such a mess. His father is awful, his wife is equally annoying, and oddly enough, Jorg develops a crush on his sister by marriage. If you’re expecting Jorg to transform into a normal human being by the end of the book, you will be disappointed because there is no character development. He doesn’t evolve at all. Instead, you start to wonder if he even has a soul. This is not a complaint from me by any means. I never expected Jorg to change. It’s very clear from the start that he is more than content to continue down his path of destruction.
“I don’t enjoy torturing people, Sir Renton, but I’m good at it. Not world-class you understand. Cowards make the best torturers. Cowards understand fear and they can use it. Heroes on the other hand, they make terrible torturers. They don’t see what motivates a normal man. They misunderstand everything. They can’t think of anything worse than besmirching your honour. A coward on the other hand; he’ll tie you to a chair and light a slow fire under you. I’m not a hero or a coward, but I work with what I’ve got.”
Bottom line is that I loved this book, and I’m normally a YA fantasy reader, so the fact I’m raving over a very dark adult fantasy should tell you that you need to at least take a peek at this book. Prince of Thorns is also my first Mark Lawrence book. Well, technically I bought Prince of Fools first and read about 20% before I switched back to my YA fantasy or contemporary, I can’t remember which one. It’s not that I wasn’t into that book because I also liked Prince Jalan, and I love Mark Lawrence’s writing style. I’m a mood reader is all it comes down to.
“I’ve grown, but whatever monster might be in me, it was always mine, my choice, my responsibility, my evil if you will.”
One thing I will say is that with fantasy, you expect all the purple prose and long, weird paragraphs describing herbs and strange objects no one understands, and Lawrence’s writing is so good you almost forget you’re reading fantasy. Jorg felt like a normal kid from our world, apart from his plans to avenge his mother and brother’s deaths before he becomes King.
Highly recommended for all fans of high fantasy, especially those who like Game of Thrones. If you can read that series, you can handle the violence in the Broken Empire Trilogy.
Still here? Good.
Prince of Thorns starts the story of Jorgath, Prince of Ancrath. Jorg is a nasty piece of work in a rum world that we slowly uncover is a post-apocalyptic version of our own world where the fall of our Age has ushered in a nasty welt of feudal principalities and baronies at a medieval level of technology, with some leftovers from our age here and there.
Jorg is unexpectedly young, and unexpectedly a prodigy in matters of tactics and strategy. Events turn Jorg into the head of a group of outlaws on the run, and while his target and goals appear clear, the way he goes about them slowly starts to realize that the chessboard Jorg is on is more complicated than the reader, or even Jorg, first realizes.
With an amoral protagonist, and the author unwilling to shy away from what he and his band of outlawds do, Prince of Thorns has come in for a lot of criticism in fantasy circles, and has acquired a number of defenders as well. I have not read a more polarizing novel in many years.
So why the defenders? Because Mark Lawrence is, like his protagonist, a prodigy of a writer, that's why. The book is told from Jorg's point of view in a first person past tense, within two time frames, the novel's present, and four years ago. In the present we see Jorg with his band of outlaws, running around Ancrath and the dominions around it. The thread four years ago reveals to the reader just how Jorg became the head of this group of outlaws. I admit that for most of the novel, I wondered at the author's choice of this flashback structure. My patience in this regard was rewarded with a "wham" that suddenly clarified a lot of things about Jorg's character and actions.
Beyond this, word choice, atmosphere and feel remain on target throughout the novel. As I said above, its a savage and dark feel that the author doesn't pull any punches on. It is so encompassing in that way that I've seen reviews of the book that attribute actions to the protagonist that he doesn't actually do. The author's craft in terms of atmosphere and setting the table is deft and a lot of first time writers could do well to study what he has done here. The combats never drag on overlong and turn into long running battles, but feel brutal, and right.
The plotting and character development are uniformly excellent. The theme of chess runs through the novel, a game that not only Jorg plays and uses as metaphors, but the structure of the plot, to a careful reader, reveals itself as a game as well. Its not quite the level of John Brunner's Squares of the City (a personal favorite) but I would not be surprised if the author was a chess enthusiast. I hesitate to tell you more about the plot, because it unfolds so well that to give away what's going on would spoil some of the pleasure I had in reading the book. Jorg's quest for revenge, in context, turns out to be far more complicated than it appears.
A few more words about Jorg. Yes, he is a nasty piece of work, a psychopathic sociopath that I was never quite able to identify with, but I grew to not only respect, but wanted to actively follow his story as I went on. As mentioned above, it takes a good writer to get me to do that. And yet, perhaps a little too subtly, it was clear to me that Jorg is not a one note character. That gang of outlaws is his family, and its clear that for all of Jorg's nature-he depends on them for more than mere survival.
Still, I'm not sure that Jorg had to be as young as he is in the book. He feels a bit *too* young by modern sensibilities, even given that in more primitive societies, such as the one in the novel of course, this is much less of a problem. It might be facile to call him "Doogie Howser, sociopath" but that does contain some truths to it.
The weakest part of the book is the part of the book that a younger version of me would have been more annoyed about: the worldbuilding. The book takes place in a post-apocalypse northwest France, based on the map and debased place names. But things niggled at me about this setting. For one thing, while as an enthusiast of the classics, I was mystified at the strong classical focus of Jorg's education and vocabulary. Why so much Plutarch and Socrates and only a smidgen of Nietzsche? (And I think that Jorg should definitely be a Will Durant enthusiast) There are a couple of references to the modern day, but they are far fewer than Jorg's classical education.
While I could potentially see how this might occur (a Canticle for Leibowitz scenario, or simply only the old books remained and the artifacts of the digital age faded away), it would have been nice to have more information on how this occurred. Too, I think, especially after reading The World Without Us by Alan Weisman, I am not sure that some of the things that do survive into this last age in the novel would have survived long without a modern civilization to keep them up.
Even given these criticisms, the plot, character and language are overwhelmingly strong in comparison, enough that, overall, the book worked for me. I don't think that I can give it a star rating, and I am glad that in this space I am not required to do so. It's a slippery bit to pin down, like a complicated line of a chess opening that is fraught with the potential for pins, forks and blocked pieces.
I recommend strongly that you read one of the online samples, say at Amazon, before going out and buying Prince of Thorns. Even then, that said, it took me some time to warm up to the book. I am usually not one for sociopathic and psychopathic characters, I usually prefer my protagonists to be much more of a white hat. Even characters such as, say, the assassin Caim from the Jon Sprunk Shadow's series does have a heart. Jorg? No, he has no such heart. And yet the author managed to endear him to me. Well played, Mr. Lawrence, well played. Rematch? I'll play Black this time.
(This review was originally published at the Functional Nerds. [...] Many more of my reviews are available there)
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I didn't know what would happen and enjoyed the slow burn of backstory whispering in the dark, behind an action packed story.
I'm now hunting for the second book.